Hear a new track from Bobby Hussy's angsty synth-pop project, which plays August 11 at the High Noon.

Photo by Melissa Reiss.

In his newish project Cave Curse, Madison musician Bobby Hussy (The Hussy, Fire Retarded) entertains his growing fascination with synthesizers and experiments with a more cracked vocal style. Cave Curse's new self-titled EP lands somewhere the punk/power-pop territory he explores in The Hussy and cold, ghoulish goth-rock.

Of the four songs on the EP, "Charms" goes the furthest into sounds that might be unfamiliar to fans of The Hussy. The synth hooks here are eerie and skeletal, unlike the warmer, more up-front hooks on a couple other songs Bobby has already teased from the release, "The Mess I Had Made" and "Stoned And Dethroned." The vocal track is just a little buried in reverb and multi-tracked synths, even as Bobby delivers tortured lines like "Be still, my barren heart!" and "I push you away." There are still a lot of pop instincts in the mix here, but Cave Curse wants to take the listener on a pointedly dark turn with this track. Give it a listen below.

In live sets, Bobby Hussy pairs up with drummer Will Gunnerson, who isn't on this EP but will play on a full-length planned for next year. Cave Curse will celebrate a limited cassette release of the new EP, on Madison's Rare Plant label, with an August 11 show at the High Noon Saloon.